Emilio Lentini

Changing paradigms in water and sanitation services in Argentina: towards a sustainable model?

Within a very short period of time, the Buenos Aires metropolitan region has implemented a number of different water and sanitation service models: a federal welfare model (Obras Sanitarias de la Nación, OSN, created in 1912), a regional decentralized model (1981), concessions to the private sector (1993), and a new public organization (2006). Analysis of various facets of the sustainability of this new organization in Argentine cities demonstrates that it seems to approach the OSN model, but with territorial limitations and some features inherited from the “private parenthesis”, such as institutionalized regulation and social control of services.

Forecasting Streamflows in the San Juan River Basin in Argentina

San Juan province, located in western Argentina, presents great climate variability with arid characteristics. Mean annual rainfall averages less than 100 mm for the whole province, and snowmelt in the Andean upper basin provides the San Juan River Basin with seasonal streamflow during summer, the period of highest water demand for irrigation. Traditional streamflow forecasts for the San Juan River are based on statistical regression models that are strongly dependent on values of snowpack in winter months (July, August, and September) and streamflow values in the spring months. However, producing forecasts for San Juan River summer streamflow using the Multivariate El Nino Southern Oscillation Index (MEI) data in the preceding June of the water year as an explicative variable can improve reservoir operating system performance for irrigation. To demonstrate this, climate predictors such as the MEI were used to forecast San Juan River streamflows to provide predictability at a six-month lead time. A backpropagation neural model, based on coupled data of snowpack and a climate predictor during the winter period, proved successful in forecasting San Juan River flows during the following summer period.

Privatization: Lessons from Argentina

In the 1990s Argentina was the testing ground for the privatization of water and sanitation services by international consortia. Touted as the solution to economic woes and poor service, three major concession contracts, Aguas Argentinas S.A., in the Buenos Aires Metropolitan Region—the largest concession in the world—and Aguas del Aconquija in Tucuman and Azurix in the province of Buenos Aires together became a global reference model both for management and financing. Yet all three were terminated prematurely, with companies and the government each blaming the other. A detailed analysis of external and internal factors delves into the complex dynamics at work in each of the privatizations to explain what led to the failure of the model.